Meteor Shower Lights Up Skies

SACRAMENTO - Emergency calls to 9-1-1 and to FOX40 news Saturday night because of what flew across the sky and appeared to hit the ground causing so many to think it was a plane crashing to the ground. It was pretty scary for people who described what looked like a fireball falling from the sky. It was all actually part of a yearly event called the Leonid meteor shower.

Still, 911 dispatchers were flooded with calls with people reporting everything from what looked like a plane crashing to a UFO landing. It was nothing that dramatic, just small pieces of debris from a passing comet. Amateur Astronomer Walter Heiges explained to FOX40 that "As we go through our orbit we go through that debris and those pieces of debris come through our atmosphere and they burn up and you see streaks of light."

But to people watching, it was unexplainable. One man called 911 to report the mysterious light and told dispatchers "everyone on the freeway is slamming on their brakes."

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